I was listening to NPR this morning. A correspondent was reporting from Watertown (Boston) where they are looking for the remaining bombing suspect. He was reporting how the streets were empty with the exception of someone on a bicycle “having a looky-loo”. The show’s host remarked that he believed it was the first time in NPR’s history that the term “looky-loo” had been broadcast. It made me smile. The term is quite common here in Oklahoma where, for example, after a tornado, there is sometimes a problem with traffic from all the “looky-loos”, or people “having a looky-loo” at the damage. I’ve always kind of thought it was a regional term, but perhaps it is more widespread.

OED says chiefly US slang but doesn’t give anything more specific. Real estate agents say that “looky-loos” are people who go to open houses without any intention of buying. May have been influenced by “looky here” which the OED says is a US version of “look-a-here”.

I’m familiar with it (born and raised in Southern California). FWIW, I’ve always thought of the term as a bit old-fashioned (in a good way), but not necessarily regional, although I certainly wouldn’t stake any money on it not being regional. Also, I’ve only run into it as a noun (for those who take a look at things they don’t really have any business looking at).

The writers of the TV cop show NYPD Blue had a go-go dancer refer to a customer as a “looky-loo” once. It sounded out of place to me. Maybe the dancer was supposed to be from somewhere else, which is common.

The whole piece is worth a read. It’s very, very funny. Incidentally, Carey’s play on Ambrose Phillips’ first name was soon taken up by fellow-wits such as Pope and Swift and in short order became a blanket term for anything weakly sentimental.

In the 1960s there was a long-running television ad campaign for either a real estate company or the professional realtors association, for which the term looky-loo was written. At least that’s where I first heard it as a child in Portland. Looky-loos were people who tramped through your open house without any intention of making an offer. A realtor would only bring qualified house hunters. The ad was run very often on local stations at times when ad rates were cheap like afternoons, and late at night. Looky-loo became a catchword in low-grade humor from those who had grown up with the ad.